Erich Traxler - Bach: Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 (2015/2020)

Lorenzo Materazzo writes of this new release which juxtaposes the piano music of J.S. Bach and Domenico Scarlatti: Both Scarlatti and Bach were prophetic composers. The former founded a modern language for the keyboard. To perform his sonatas, independence of the fingers combined with new positions of the hands is required. In fact Scarlatti was such a deep and polyhedric explorer of the possibilities of the harpsichord that his works seem to be composed for the modern piano, an instrument which offers a thousand possibilities. The art of the German composer, on the other hand, characterized by an elaborated harmonic language and a detailed polyphonic writing, encompasses all the compositional techniques of that period and even creates new ones. His music offers an absolute reference model until today for classical music and also for jazz. Thus the works of these musicians are still fresh and I think it is natural to perform and record them today.